In Tehran, how a person's personal and political views can impact their private and public life is that anything that they do, would have an impact on their lives. In the story, Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi he writes about a women's life in Tehran and how the government controls everything there. All of the women in Tehran are segregated and dont have the same rights as other people. The women in Tehran are forced to adhear to the Islamic dress code as said in the background, "The new government passed laws that segregate men and women and that force women to adhere to an Islamic dress code. Iranian women are required to wear veils that cover their hair and neck and coats that cover their arms and legs." if the women were to not comply to the dress code, they would be beaten and put in jail for something so little. …show more content…
Sanaz had to cover up everything that she was wearing, like her earings and nail polish as Nafisi writes, "She says her goodbyes and puts on her black robe and scarf over her orange shirt and jeans, coiling her scarf around her neck to cover her huge gold earrings. She directs wayward strands of hair under the scarf, puts her notes into her large bag, straps it on over her shoulder, and walks out into the hall. She pauses a moment on top of the stairs to put on thin lacy black gloves to hide her nail polish." She needs to cover up so she wouldnt have to deal with the government about her outfit and so she wouldnt be penilized for what she was
First, the story “Lolita In Tehran” was a rebellion that was very hidden and private. Sanaz is a women who lives in Tehran, Sanaz had to wear a veil, black robe, and scarf to cover up her whole body, she can’t show any skin when she is outside. She wears jewerly, make up, nail polish, and bright color clothes that can never be seen. “The Blood of God” are men who patrol the city. The passage says “they patrol the streets to make sure that women like Sanaz
The article “My Body Is My Own Business” by Naheed Mustafa is about an Islamic women’s principle that putting on her usual headscarf, or Hijab, actually empowers her as a female, contrary to the popular principle that the hijab represents male oppressiveness. She ex...
In conclusion, the Iranian artist, Shirin Neshat, gave a TedTalk in December 2010 that outlined the role of Iranian artists in how the west perceives Iran and the changing position of women in Iranian culture as the political and cultural situation slowly shifts. In the end, what Neshat managed to convey through this talk was her desire for the west to consider the biased information that tends to front our news headlines in recent years, and further study could reveal why these negatives are often emphasised by the west. Although Neshat is in self-imposed exile from Iran, she still manages to highlight to the west the issues her country faces. Consequently, Neshat causes many peoples’ focus to shift towards Iran’s rich history and the strength of the Iranian people today and therefore helps to inspire people to continue the struggle for freedom.
With such a unanimous resentment, particularly in the dominating religious sect of Iran, it is important to address the ideologies within the religion enforce the country’s patriarchal social structure, i.e. the “form of social organization in which males dominate females” (text 38). Furthermore, with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, these attitudes were the driving force behind many of the discriminatory laws that confined women in Iran to a life defined by its limitations.
There are many examples throughout the text that specifically focus on the overbearing treatment of women. During the country's revolution there is a shift to extremely conservative religious conviction that force women to cover themselves head to toe while in public. Ultimately, Nafisi refuses to wear a veil while teaching at the University of Tehran which leads to her expulsion. These examples presented throughout the text along with various outside sources, can be a tool to interpret and scrutinize the oppressive treatment of people in unjust societies like that of Iran's.
Tohisi, Nayereh. "Iranian Women and Gender Relations in Los Angeles." California Dreams and Realities: Readings for Critical Thinkers and Writers. Ed. Sonia Maasik, and J F. Solomon. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1993. 149-159. Print.
Fakhraie launches her essay by explaining how Muslim women struggle every day because of what they wear. In her essay, she talks about a teenage girl that was killed by her father because she refused to wear her hijab. Also, many women that wear a hijab are being banned from sporting events in the United States. A hijab is a “traditional Muslim garment” (Fakhraie 461) that several Muslim women wear every
To understand the changing role of women starting during the Islamic Revolution, it is important to briefly review the lives of Iranian women and the role of Islam during the final years of the secular regime of the Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah was disliked by the majority of Iranian population, but his secular and prominent Western attitude allowed for some reforms of women’s rights in Iran. For example, in 1963 he created a reform program which would eventually be known as the “White Revolution,” which included suffrage for women (Beck and Nashat 114). This decision led to a violent reaction, especially from strong Islamic leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini, whom would eventually play a pivotal role in the revolution and women’s rights. Although the Shah allowed for women’s reform, he was popularly known as a dictator and appeared to be in complete favor of maintaining a traditional patriarchal society.
Women in Iran don’t have this luxury.They never got the choice to wear what they wanted to because religious customs were enforced into the law. In “Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return”, Satrapi states, Little details made a big difference in the fight against the rule(Satrapi,84). When some of the women defied the laws set by the government, they discreetly had demanded their freedom.Makeup or colored clothing displayed their demand. They wanted to express themselves so they rebelled with these little actions risking arrest. Their choice of clothes was never given to them so they demanded the right by rebelling. After years of not being able to express themselves they felt as though they were representing the community with the same clothes, but they wanted their own. Azar Nafisi says in “Reading Lolita in Tehran”,” Does she realize how dangerous she can be when every stray gesture is a disturbance to public safety?”(Nafisi,83). The author emphasizes that many actions and clothing are banned so there is opportunity to rebel. Rebelling is demanding for it to be changed. Clothing and movements can be an act that represents the demand. This granted them the ability to rebel and
2007 "The Politics and Hermeneutics of Hijab in Iran: From Confinement to Choice." In Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 4.1
The religion of Islam was imposed upon Iranians, whether they liked it or not. Marjane and her classmates “...didn’t like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to”(Satrapi 3). The young girls were against wearing the veil because they were not practicing
...a visit with Aziza, Laila saw a middle-aged woman, with her burqa pushed back…Laila recognized the sharp face… Laila remembered this woman once forbidding the female students from covering, saying women and men were equal, that there was no reason for women should cover if men didn’t” (322). To see a woman who was as close to a feminist as a woman in Afghanistan could get, to see her fall to level that the government wanted her at was crucial point in the novel that allowed us to really see the affect that the government had on the women in controlling every aspect of their lives.
The reformation of the country of Iran toward Islam caused turmoil among the people because the drastic changes forced on the people were not easily accepted. One of the major changes is that women were forced to wear veils as a religious requirement. A change in government toward a religion is difficult to overcome because not everyone agrees on the changes and many people want to keep things the way they are. This change to Islam is difficult for Marjane and the other children as she explains “We didn’t really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to” (3). Marjane’s family serves as an example that there are families in Iran who do not strictly follow the Islamic religion and do not understand why they are being forced to follow the government mandated rules. Although many people did not believe the government’s proposition that women’s hair excites men, they still had to wear the veil to live safely. Marjane claims, “I think that the reason we were so rebellious was that our generation had known secular schools” (98). Constantly struggling to make the transition to the religious schools was difficult for the children of Iran because they had already be...
The way they dressed quickly changed as shown when Marji asserted that “In no time, the way people dressed became an ideological sign. There were two kinds of women. The fundamentalist woman [and] the modern woman. There were also two sorts of men. The fundamentalist man [and] the progressive man” (75). Satrapi uses the two frames on page 75 to illustrate the idea associated with the two different ways in which both men and women chose to dress whether it be tradition, or not. Satrapi expounds how their choice of dressing then depicts their view on the Islamic Revolution. She explains how the modern women rebelled by wearing heard scarves, instead of the traditional full veil, along with letting some hair slightly fall out to show opposition against the Iranian regime. She continues with how the progressive man also showed their opposition by tucking their shirts in and shaving their facial hair, in contrast to the fundamentalist man who leaves his shirt hung out, along with a full beard. Satrapi denotes that both genders of characters take the risk of not dressing like a fundamentalist, in order to show their form of rebellion in a settle way, knowing of course that there is always a possibility of
Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, makes important strides toward altering how Western audiences perceive Iranian women. Satrapi endeavors to display the intersection of the lives of some Westerners with her life as an Iranian, who spent some time in the West. Satrapi, dissatisfied with representations she saw of Iranian women in France, decided to challenge them. In her words, “From the time I came to France in 1994, I was always telling stories about life in Iran to my friends. We’d see pieces about Iran on television, but they didn’t represent my experience at all. I had to keep saying, ‘No, it’s not like that there.’ I’ve been justifying why it isn’t negative to be an Iranian for almost twenty years. How strange when it isn’t something I did or chose to be?” (Satrapi, “Why I Wrote Persepolis” 10). In acknowledging both Eastern and Western feminism, Satrapi’s novel humanizes the female Iranian perspective in a way that can easily digested by Western audiences.